The spam is automatically posted using a specialist piece of software. I'm not going to name it because the spammers use it to search for other vulnerable sites. The text is often copied or stolen from books (I translated one of last night's posts and it was from something written for a, er, rather mature audience), although sometimes they generate gibberish using an algorithm called a Markov chain. The purpose of these posts is to make the links appear higher up search results in places like Google so people are more likely to click on them, the logic being that if lots of "people" post links with some particular text, there must be something good there. This is called search engine optimization or SEO. The links are generally fraudulent and often have links to organized crime. I certainly wouldn't follow them. There are certain ISPs that specialize in hosting spam sites like these.

The spammers don't actually come to the site to post; the software does all the work for them and they just have to press a button.

mhoulden wrote:The spam is automatically posted using a specialist piece of software. I'm not going to name it because the spammers use it to search for other vulnerable sites. The text is often copied or stolen from books (I translated one of last night's posts and it was from something written for a, er, rather mature audience), although sometimes they generate gibberish using an algorithm called a Markov chain. The purpose of these posts is to make the links appear higher up search results in places like Google so people are more likely to click on them, the logic being that if lots of "people" post links with some particular text, there must be something good there. This is called search engine optimization or SEO. The links are generally fraudulent and often have links to organized crime. I certainly wouldn't follow them. There are certain ISPs that specialize in hosting spam sites like these.

The spammers don't actually come to the site to post; the software does all the work for them and they just have to press a button.

Hopefully this isn't too technical an explanation.

Thanks for the explanation. It's at the right level for me. I am reasonably up to speed with some aspects of computing which interest me but have gaps in my knowledge about others , such as spam and malware , which don't hold any interest for me and I never needed to learn about professionally. Normally I wouldn't even open an obvious spam message much less follow any links within it.

It used to be said that the statue of the Black Prince had been placed in City Square , near the station, pointing South to tell all the southerners who've just got off the train to b****r off back down south!

I'm a member of another forum which has been through all this. We used to have several members with moderating privileges (including me) specifically to delete spam as soon as it appeared. It's now gone over to a system which requires a new member's first post to be approved by a moderator before the software will allow them to make any more posts. As most of this comes from spambots, they don't even get as far as submitting a post for approval.

Anyway this is a small Competion to name a Yorkshire man from this description.....
Born not too far from Leeds about 1940 he had a very hard upbringing as a youngster including going to School barefoot, being tied up by his Mother whist she went out drinking left alone in a Council Flat and then sexually assualted by a neighbour. Leaving school at 15 years old he went down the Mines stayed there for five years mainly helping to recover other injured or dead Colliers from Roof Falls.
despite this hard upbringing he had quite a successful career until he changed course and after spells with various Multi Co.s he is now one one the Top jollies at possibly one of the top five Retail Stores in the U.k.

The First correct answer will get 500 free spins on these Russian Frut Machiines, all you hav to do is send them your Bank Card / Password etc.

Hi Jack. I've called the cavalry. For me deleting spam is a 4 step process and there are 89 posts to remove. Hopefully the cavalry can sweep it away in one manoeuvre preferably not led by General Error.

living a stones throw from the Leeds MDC border at Lofthousehttp://tykebhoy.wordpress.com/

Hello tyke bhoy,
Good luck with all your endevours.
I know very little about any matters arising from the Internet / spammers etc.
is it not possible to just Post over their Gobblegook as i have done earlier or is that simply postponing the problem.?

Hi Jack if you post it means the spam is not the most recent post in the thread but it is still in the thread spoiling the flow for users. While passing over its possible some members may also inadvertently click on one of the hyperlinks which may lead to a "dodgy" website. We really need to get rid of the gobbledygook and I will one at a time if necessary but I'm hoping it is not.

living a stones throw from the Leeds MDC border at Lofthousehttp://tykebhoy.wordpress.com/

[quote="tyke bhoy"]Hi Jack if you post it means the spam is not the most recent post in the thread but it is still in the thread spoiling the flow for users. While passing over its possible some members may also inadvertently click on one of the hyperlinks which may lead to a "dodgy" website. We really need to get rid of the gobbledygook and I will one at a time if necessary but I'm hoping it is not.

Thanks for that good advice , will steer well clear of any of this recently posted Rubbish.
Regards Jack Daly.

mhoulden wrote:I've cleaned all the spam out that I can find. If one of the admins wants to bump me up to full admin as well it means I can zap a spammer's posts in one go rather than having to do one at a time.